The authors carried out a door-to-door survey to determine the prevalence of epilepsy amongst 55,000 people in China. The lifetime prevalence was 7.0/1000 and 41% of all persons had not received any appropriate treatment. The prevalence of active epilepsy was 4.6/1000 and 63% of people with active epilepsy had not received antiepileptic in the week before the survey. Figures for the prevalence and treatment gap were significantly higher than previous estimates.